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VISIONARY REVUE
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PART II
L. CARUANA
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HIDDEN SIGNS OF THE HIERATIC
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We descended a set of stairs to the stone quai bordering the ancient river. In the semi-darkness, all we could hear was the rippling water.
Then, Myrette came to stop under the orange glow of a street lamp. As she settled herself on the stone bank, her slender legs dangled over the dark waters. Across from us, on the opposite embankment, rose the northern facade of Notre Dame. It glowed resplendent in the darkness, unilluminated but glorious.
Nervously, Mirette fingered her silver pendant, which flashed its arcane symbol in the shadows.
"That charm around your neck - why do you always play with it?" I asked, settling myself beside her.
She looked at me gravely. "I am not a Freemason. I'm not a member of the Illuminati, nor an alien from outerspace. But, I've been accused of all these things because I wear this symbol round my neck."
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She showed me the pendant, which displayed a pyramid with 'the eye of God'.
"I've been collecting examples of it wherever I can find them." She showed me cuttings and postcards, all bearing the same mysterious motif. (See page opposite). "After all my research, I still |
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don't know what it means."
"It's the hidden sign of the Hieratic," I replied.
She stared at me, one eyebrow raised dubiously.
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FALL 2007
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"We agree that Western art was increasingly dominated by the Humanist style - the dynamic compositions, full of power and movement, with broad expansive gestures. But the Hieratic style persisted, and its hidden signs can be seen in the works of its greatest artists - Michelangelo, Blake, Moreau. They're the guardians of the Visionary Lineage."
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Top left:
Detail from Ernst Fuchs
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Top right:
Detail from H. R. Giger
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Bottom left:
Detail from H. R. Giger
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Top left:
Detail from Alex Grey
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VISIONARY REVUE
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I gazed at the cathedral opposite, with it huge window of stained-glass. A vision passed before me, of the masons and guilds who wove this celestial rose in stone.
"This triangle with the eye atop," I pursued, "is the hidden sign of seeing unity. Throughout time, visionary artists have used the Hieratic style to express the experience of seeing unity. One example is the rosace straight ahead of us - a perfect circle drawing our eyes inexorably to its centre."
Myrette's eyes rose to the stained-glass circle.
"But symmetrical figures also manifest this, like the meditating Buddha, the enthroned Egyptian king, or Christ on the cross. Underlying the figure's symmetry is the attempt to center our vision - to bring the whole composition together and unify it at one point.
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FALL 2007
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"By meditating on that point, we can bring all the parts together in our vision, and actually see unity. It's not easy, and I've passed through a lot of trials trying to achieve that way of seeing.* But once it's acquired, we begin to see its hidden signs time and again in the history of art. Through their frontal stance and centeredness, these works become 'sacred mirrors'.
"After the symmetry of single figures, the hidden signs expand into those large symmetrical compositions so typical of sacred art: triptychs, altarpieces, The Last Judgement.
"Then, the triangle shows up. The eye of the main figure is located exactly at the apex of the pyramid."
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__________________________________________
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*Author's note: See A Mirror Delirious.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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I pulled out my notebook and showed her how, time and again, I'd noticed this same motif in painting.
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- CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO SEE THE TRIANGLE -
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TOP: Oceanicon, Maura Holden
BOTTOM LEFT: Self-portrait, Johfra
BOTTOM RIGHT: Battle of the Transformed Gods, Ernst Fuchs
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FALL 2007
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"OK," she admitted, "I see the pyramid with the eye on top. But I can't say that I 'see unity'."
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MADONNA AND CHILD
Duccio
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"Seeing unity is like seeing sacred space - all the signs are there, but the experience escapes us most of the time. We have to be in a certain frame of mind first; we have to situate ourselves in the Sacred - in the centre of sacred time and space. That's how Hieratic works of art are designed: they center us in the Sacred, making us see who we are and where we came from. We are one with the all, a particle of the Divine. Hieratic works show us that, but most of the time we just don't see it."
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VISIONARY REVUE
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Myrette continued to stare at the stained-glass rosace. Even though, in the night, it lacked its translucent glory, the lattice-work of stones started to vibrate in a series of concentric circles.
For a few moments, |
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an imperceptible smile passed over Myrettes lips.
"Go on," she said.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SEEING UNITY
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"Without a doubt, the entheogens help - but they're not the only way. The history of art can be interpreted as the evolution of seeing unity. This began in more ancient times, with Tribal cultures, and the works of the Egyptians, Hindus and Buddhists. Then it moved to the Mayas and, in Christian times, to Byzantine and Gothic art. All of these use symmetry, or the underlying structure of triangles, circles and squares, to manifest the hidden unity.
"But symmetry and charpentes arise in two-dimensions only. When the Netherlandish painters discovered 'one-point perspective', they evolved a new way of seeing unity, by transferring it into the third dimension of the picture plane. It's like taking a temple or cathedral, with its surrounding sacred space, and collapsing it into the picture. If you meditate on a painting long enough, you can actually see its three-dimensional space. The interior sacred space acquires amazing depth.
"The experience is bizarre at first, and a bit frightening really. What is happening is that the parts are re-assembling into unity, but now, that unity appears further back, beyond the painting's 2D symmetry or charpentes, and in the interior sacred space. Netherlandish artists learned to see unity in the painting's third dimension."
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FALL 2007
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THE LAST SUPPER
Dieric Bouts
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Myrette stared at an example I found in my notebook. She stared at it intensely, over the course of several minutes.
"I don't know if it's the entheogens or the art - but I'm starting to see it... C'est bizarre! The painting is really three dimensional..."
She took a break and gazed down into the dark waters of the Seine.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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THE REVERSE PERSPECTIVE OF BYZANTINE ART
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"There are other systems of perspective, and they all work - the reverse perspective of Byzantine art and the oblique perspective of Buddhist art. But, when you learn to really see these images three-dimensionally, certain distortions start to show up."
"Distortions - or perfections?" Myrette asked, a provocative smile playing across her lips.
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"You're right - perfections. Look at this Buddhist image. Because its perspectival system is oblique, we think its somehow wrong or 'distorted'; the receeding lines don't meet up on the horizon. But, what if the artist was seeking unity, simultaneously, in the two and three dimensional planes? Then he opened the receeding lines to their oblique angle so they could |
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harmonize with the square grid of its 2D symmetry. He was 'perfecting' its sacred space in 2D and 3D, in symmetry and depth, through oblique perspective..."
"In Renaissance art," Myrette remarked, "the sacred space of the painting is based on the square. Really, all the receeding |
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FALL 2007
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ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PERSPECTIVE
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lines are parallel, and never meet. But they're 'distorted' to make them meet at the vanishing point on the horizon line."
"And today, we see no longer see the distortion; we think that this is a 'perfect' representation of depth."
"Meanwhile," Myrette pursued, "the horizontals are constructed through two distance points on the far right and left of the horizon line. As a result, the perspectival space reaches out to the viewer - it extends the picture's sacred space right into the space where the viewer is standing."
"Netherlandish art is different," I said. "There are no distance points. Instead, their space is based on the circle - a series of concentric circles, like a convex mirror. And the vanishing point is always at the very centre of the painting. As a result, the perspective invites him into the painting's unified, sacred space."
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"That explains Van Eyck" Myrette remarked, "and why he put a convex mirror at the central vanishing point. What audacity! It's like painting one convex mirror inside another!"
"What we fail to remember," I said, "is that perspective was an evolution in seeing unity. |
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It wasn't just 'constructed' - the visionary artists learned to see the depth, to see the sacred space in its third dimension. He joined up the lines in his vision, by seeing unity. Perspective is seeing unity."
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VISIONARY REVUE
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VOLUME
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"Then what was the next step," Myrette asked, "the next evolution in seeing?"
I looked down at her hands - so graceful and alive.
"It came to me one evening when I viewed Michelangelo's work under entheogens. Look at this image and tell me what you see."
For some time, Myrette stared at the Christ image from Michelangelo's Last Judgement.
"It has that 'epic' quality we mentioned before," she said. "The figure is slightly widened, so it appears broader than usual - almost flat."
"You're seeing the distortion. Your eye is tracing out the silhouette, and finding faults. The lines of the silhouette don't meet up where they should, so the figure looks 'flat' on the two dimensional plane.
"But really," I reminded her, "those distortions are, in fact, perfections. If you concentrate on the little finger, which is right at the centre of the figure, you'll see after a few minutes that it's reaching right out to you. Indeed, the whole figure is bulging outward and extremely three-dimensional. But now, you're not looking into the picture's perspectival depths; your seeing the volume bulge outward, in that third dimension which remains otherwise unseen to normal sight."
Myrette kept staring at the image. After a few minutes, a look of wonder settled over her features.
"It's happening... The figure has real power and presence - even energy. A kind of stilled energy. It's not flat at all, but monumental, full-bodied."
"What you're seeing," I said, "is volume - the volume that unites the play of light and shadow over the figure. The moment you see the volume, the light and shadows fuse to create this remarkable effect. You're seeing unity in volume. That was the next evolution in seeing unity."
"It's so obvious," she said. "Michelangelo was a sculptor. So, of course he wanted to bring the sculpture's volume into painting. It's all there - the contrapposto, the forces coursing up and down through the figure, which is rippling with an incredible energy."
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FALL 2007
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"That energy flows through the whole fresco," I said. "Half of the figures in the lower portion are falling to Hell. They're |
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Michelangelo's taken the Last Judgement and infused the stiff Hieratic symmetry of Netherlandish representations with new energy and passion."
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VISIONARY REVUE
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"- The signs of the Humanist style," Myrette agreed. "But the hidden signs of the Hieratic are still there?"
"The eye of Christ is at the apex of a triangle - but two more triangles run through the composition as a whole: each of these has one of Christ's wounded hands as its apex."
She nodded. Then, breaking her gaze away from the Last Judgement, Myrette started leafing through her notebook.
At last, she produced a torn page with Michelangelo's Sibyl of Delphi.
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"This image has meant so much to me, but I'm afraid that, maybe, I've never really seen it - until now."
Together, we concentrated on the enigmatic sibyl. First, the figure came together as a whole - her elbow and knee thrust outward, the fabulous energy swirling in the drapery, the remarkable vibration of colours. Then, we concentrated on the face - those beautiful, enigmatic figures.
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"What I see," Myrette whispered with awe, "is a merging of the Humanist and Hieratic styles. Her face, so symmetric and still, is Hieratic. And yet, it expresses a Humanist emotion: awe, wonder, fear... a terrible sadness tinged with joy. She's seen it all in her sibylline visions - salvation, damnation, judgement and divine grace - all brought to standstill in one eternal moment."
She let the torn page slide from her hands. It fluttered and spun as it descended gracefully into the Seine. Then, we watched as the sibyl disappeared into watery darkness.
Myrette's head hung heavy from her shoulders. She seemed mesmerized by the river's darkness, wanting to sink into it, like that sombre reflection of herself, the sibyl.
For a moment, I was afraid she would let herself fall. Impulsively, I pulled her to me and held her close.
She turned and gazed at me with an expression I could hardly decipher.
"Don't be afraid..." she murmured.
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FALL 2007
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I stared at our shadows, flickering darkly in the river's flow.
The river became a mirror, distorting our reflections, and we became hypnotized by those fleeting apparitions. Our eyes locked onto them, refusing to let them go.
Was it Myrette or the sibyl that I saw in the river's darkness?
Then her reflection altered and a new aspect of Myrette appeared - young, fresh, spontaneous and alive. Although our thoughts, this evening, had raced across the centuries, Myrette lives for this moment, wary of the future, fearful of the past. |
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VISIONARY REVUE
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She wants the world to reach its culmination now, in a moment of judgement and forgiveness, in the sudden silence that spans two heartbeats.
I pass through her gaze and begin to see the world through her eyes. I see myself from her point of view - the features in my face which attract her. Whether we know it or not, we - like all couples - are seeking that person whose face mirrors our own to a certain degree.
Suddenly, I see the features we share. I see my face in her face, and myself in her. But, I can also see the qualities which I possess that are opposite to hers, and which attract her - my dark skin, my black hair, my inquisitive look.
It is strange to see myself through her eyes - changing appearance radically from one moment to the next. Sometimes I'm judgemental and severe; other times loving and forgiving. I'm lonely, homeless, a wanderer travelling from place to place, becoming a part of any landscape, fitting into it naturally.
She, meanwhile, is obviously a creature of feeling, influenced by her environment, even overwhelmed. She too is a wanderer, seeking a place where her heart can beat and soul can breathe.
Then, another veil is lifted, and I manage to catch a glimpse of the Myrette - an image that captures, for a brief instant, her life's deepest truth. She is a child, craving admiration. She wants me to desire her. She lives off the reflection, the image of herself that arises in another's eyes. He exists so she can lose herself in his gaze. The man opposite remains a mystery, one she cannot comprehend.
She and I, through our intense longings, have brought all that is dark and unknown inside of us to the surface...
In the span of a heartbeat, our whole lives pass, apart yet entwined, alone yet united.
She is the light and I am the darkness. She is opening her arms now, wanting to embrace me - unite the male and female, the light and darkness - surrendering them all into oneness.
My heart thundered in my chest as I divined her next thought. She wants for us to come together, in this watery mirror, and embrace each other's shadow. With eyes forever closed, we could extinguish ourselves in these dark reflections.
Myrette closed her eyes and slid off the embankment, but I seized her, refusing to let her go. For a moment, I longed for nothing more than this graceful descent into darkness, but an overwhelming fear or some greater striving for life made me reach out and prevent our falling.
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FALL 2007
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She smiled and said, "I knew you would do that..."
Rising to her feet, Myrette strolled slowly along the quai.
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LIGHT AND DARKNESS
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I remained sitting for a few moments, lost in reflection.
Looking back now, I wonder why I acted as I did. As I sat there, on that embankment - why didn't I come to some kind of decision?
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Why did I stand, just a few moments later, and follow her? Hadn't she just shown me, silently but clearly, that her hold on life was tenuous at best? Couldn't I see then that she would leave me - cruelly, abruptly - and disappear forever? That horrendous rupture sent me on an unexpected journey through my innermost hell.
I see myself a few months hence - collapsing to the floor, paralyzed with pain, unable to move...
If only I had left her then. But I didn't.
A terrible sense of panic seized me. I didn't want to remain there alone.
When I caught up with Myrette, she tried to re-assure me with a smile. She squeezed my hand and pressed her head to my shoulder. We were still heading east, towards the |
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Jardin des Plantes and, beyond that, my studio in the Bastille. Myrette raised my hand to her lips.
"Tell me more..." she whispered, "the evolution of seeing..."
Passing under the Pont de l'Archevêché, I admired the play of shadows across her cheek - how light and darkness alternated in her aspect.
"Chiarascuro," I said, "Da Vinci's obsession with shadow." |
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VISIONARY REVUE
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She looked at me. "La claire-obscure the French call it - the 'light-dark'."
"It added a new level of mood and expression - Da Vinci's tendency to seek out the strongest contrast of light and darkness, just here," I brushed her cheek, "in the corner of the mouth and the edge of the eyes, where expression reaches its peak."
She gazed at me and, for a few moments, I could see it again - her remarkable resemblance to the woman with an ermine.
Myrette glanced east toward the horizon. A gentle play of pastel hues appeared below the morning star.
"What about colour?"
"That was where Michelangelo excelled once more. But you can't have both. Colour and chiarascuro are in conflict. Each of them tries, in its own way, to define the volume - the chiarascuro, through light and darkness; the colour - through variations in hue."
"Why not both?"
"Because when we paint, whites and blacks increase the light and darkness, but decrease the colours' saturation. You can't have both. As the Impressionists learned, you achieve the strongest vibration when two colours share the same shade of grey."
"So what happened?"
"Artists went to one extreme, then the other. First, with Da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt, they concentrated on chiarascuro. They saw the volume, increasingly, through contrasts of light and shadow. And the point of transition, where light and shadow meet, became the focus of their vision.
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| "Look at Rembrandt's portrait of Aristotle. The hidden sign of the Hieratic is still there - the triangle with the eye on top - but now, the greatest point of contrast, the highest light and deepest shadow, is in the eye. Where else but the eye? Because that's where the two become one, the extremes of light and darkness meet then fuse." |
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"Don't they meet in grey?"
"In normal sight, yes. But Rembrandt was learning to see unity in the extremes of light and dark, so he turned to colour. |
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FALL 2007
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NIGHT WATCH
Rembrandt
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He dispensed with all colour, except yellow. Then he learned to see yellow in all its extremes of light (Naples yellow, brilliant yellow, ochre) and darkness (brown, sepia, burnt umber). That one colour became the unity underlying the extremes. Through yellow, he learned to see unity in chiarascuro."
"That reminds me," Myrette said, "of the time I stared at Rembrandt's Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum. Of course, it's in Amsterdam, so I made a little visit to their hash cafés first... What I saw, when I stood before that large painting, was one eye, right in the middle of the composition. It was eerie, as if it were staring at me.
"I became obsessed by that eye, so I bought a reproduction and measured it all out. In fact, the eye was a little off centre, just to the left. Then I found out that the left side of the painting had been sheared off hundreds of years ago. In fact, the eye used to be exactly in the centre. Etrange, no..?"
"Not at all. It was a sign - a hidden sign..."
"...of the Hieratic!"
Myrette laughed. Then she took me by the arm, and steered me back along the quai. We began retracing our steps.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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LOSING SIGHT OF THE SACRED
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"So what about the other extreme? What about colour?"
"First, we have to look at what happened to the human figure. Through chiarascuro, shape and volume began to break down. Mannerist artists were more concerned with the points of transition between light and darkness, and defined the human figure in those terms.
"Da Vinci, meanwhile, had always preserved the penumbra, the light-in-shadow, through lighting from behind. He traced a luminous halo or silhouette onto the edge of the shadow. He didn't dare break the contiguous shape, the outline or silhouette, that surrounds the volume.
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"But Caravaggio did. He let the shadows recede into total darkness, so the silhouette was broken. The human figure lost those defining shapes which artists had developed over thousands of years. It was equivalent to breaking the ancient statues and staring at the fragments that remained."
"So Western art lost everything that went with those shapes - the Hieratic forms, the sacred space?"
"Yes. Shadows |
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eclipsed the light. It wasn't just what the art was saying - 'we prefer portraits and landscapes now to religious subjects' - but what it was showing us - 'we've lost sight of the Sacred'. The human body, with its amorphous shape, had lost the graceful and harmonious curves, the hidden perfect shapes, of the Hieratic style. The exceptions were those artists who tried to preserve the Visionary Lineage: Blake and Moreau, the Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolists... Their works called upon the Hieratic styles and continued to evoke their unseen worlds."
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FALL 2007
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Myrette looked over her shoulder. The eastern horizon was glowing. She quickened her pace.
"Colour - tell me about colour!"
"Of course, the Impressionists made some important advances. They threw out the chiarascuro and concentrated on colour. Have you ever looked at a black and white photo of an Impressionist painting? Grey. It's almost all grey. They discovered how colours harmonized and vibrated when they shared a common shade. It's the opposite of Rembrandt. Now, one shade of grey, which remained unseen, offered the colours their underlying unity. They learned to 'see unity' through the hidden grey behind colours."
"That's it? That's all?"
"They also redefined volume, by dispensing with light and shadow. Now, volume was achieved by contrasting warm and cold colours, and moving through the spectrum. But colour is an endless subject. I could spend the whole night discussing it."
Myrette nodded. "Still, they were Humanists," she remarked, "all of them - Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec. They celebrated Paris, and all the joys of life..."
"But," I countered, "everything was breaking down. Like Van Gogh and Munch, our culture was coming apart - madness, dreams, addiction. All the hidden signs of the Hieratic had been lost."
"No," Myrette said, "We sought them somewhere else - in the unconscious, through dreams or drug-inspired visions: Surréalisme, l'absinthe, le haschisch... We turned to Tribal cultures, with their totems and sacred patterns. I think that's where we are now."
"But I ask myself - are we still evolving our ways of seeing? Is there still an evolution in seeing unity?"
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VISIONARY REVUE
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SEEING THE VISIONARY LINEAGE
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Myrette sat me down on the set of stone steps leading to the Pont au Double.
Smiling wickedly, she removed her pendant and opened it up. Then she pulled out something I'd never seen before.
"Here. Take some of this."
We shared the contents of her mysterious talisman. It tasted strange and bitter-sweet, a sacrament hitherto unknown to me.
"Now come," she said, leading me by the hand.
Slowly, we climbed the steps and crossed the small bridge over the Seine.
In the morning twilight, Notre Dame rose before us, a resplendent stone artifice. Was this a cathedral? I'd passed this edifice a thousand times before, but I'd never seen it like this. The stones broke their austere silence and whispered secrets that spanned the centuries. Tears rose to my eyes.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're standing before the gates to Paradise..." she whispered.
We sat on the stone pavement before Notre Dame - and stared. Like little children, we smiled without words. My eyes passed over the mysterious workmanship, marvelling at the perfect proportions, the symmetrical towers, the single spire ascending heavenward. Wide and aware, my eyes scanned the endless iconography, the three archways filled with figures, the central arch surmounted by a stained-glass rosace.
All was wrought in the Hieratic style. I saw Christ the judge, his hands upheld, exposing his wounds for all to see. This was the Last Judgement, the Apocalypse at the end of time, the moment of Revelation.
But there, in the faces of Eve and the Virgin, I could see touches of something new emerging, a Humanism otherwise unheard of in the Gothic age.
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FALL 2007
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These women smiled mysteriously, shining with kindness and compassion. Even now, at the final hour, all would be forgiven. They quelled our fears and calmed our hearts, showering us with peace, serenity and quietude.
Then, the miracle happened. We entered sacred space. Though we sat side by side, unmoving, the earth around us transformed, and everything seemed to sparkle with a new light. Despite the misty darkness of morning, we were bathed in a glorious twilight.
It felt as if linear history had reached its conclusion, and now we were living in the eternal moment.
"I've been here before," I said. To my great surprise, my words did not shatter the experience. I could speak (though my voice reverberated curiously in my head). Speech, like steps, can measure out time, but my words resounded in unmeasured silence.
"Tell me," Myrette whispered, pressing herself close.
"Khajuraho," I said, remembering the day I'd visited its temples. Though that was some years ago, on a distant continent - I was there again (or rather: it was here). Had time cycled round?
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VISIONARY REVUE
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KHAJURAHO
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"In India, I'd smoked some of the local bhang. The little guy that sold it to me said, 'With this stuff, you will see heaven!' And he swirled his eyes in a theatrical Hindu manner.
"I entered the site, which is surrounded by beautiful gardens. It was the Feast of Holi, and pilgrims were everywhere, beautifully dressed in their colourful saris, carrying flowers to place on the altars.
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"I ascended the steps to the Devi Jagadambi temple. But this, I soon learned, was a mistake. At once I was met by Ramesh Prasad Tawari - one of the temple guards who I'd met a few days before. I'd even had dinner with his family. Though he wore the uniform of a guard, the elderly Ramesh was a Brahmin by caste, and discreetly bathed |
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and ornamented the statues each morning, before the site opened.
"But, ascending the steps to the temple platform, I had increasingly entered its sacred space. I was spellbound, feeling an ecstasy bordering on samadhi. It was then that Ramesh took me by the hand, insisting on touring the temple's exterior. I tried to protest, but he prevailed.
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FALL 2007
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In fact, Ramesh took me on exactly the same tour that he did on the first day we'd met, pointing out the same statues, mouthing the exact same words, telling me the same jokes. All the while, he gazed at me intensely with his deep grey eyes.
"I nodded, laughed, smiled - doing all that I could to appear normal. But everything was transpiring in a higher dimension. He was the ancient Brahmin of this temple, and his ritual was designed to demonstrate how time, in this sacred precinct, was indeed cyclic. I was now trapped in cyclic time with Ramesh Prasad Tiwari.
"We cycled clockwise, viewing each facade of that richly ornamented temple. The sculptures amazed me - the uniqueness of their Hieratic style, the extreme contrapposto, the archaic smiles. This temple was a temple. Even from the outside, I could feel its tremendous power. The gods dwelt here.
"Returning to the place from whence we'd commenced, the Brahmin asked me, 'Do you understand?' Ancient lines were etched on his face. I saw wisdom, compassion and release from all suffering. He spoke with the authority of the ages. Yes, I nodded - I understood.
"Ramesh released me, and I stood once more before the temple's entrance. Removing my sandals, I ascended the porch and passed through the vestibule. At last, I was alone within the small, dimly-lit interior.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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"Before me, across a stone platform, was the innermost sanctum. Through a raised doorway which served as the altar, I beheld the sculpted deity of this temple: the goddess Parvati. Bright powdered hues fell over her shoulders, her hips and her full round breasts. Flower offerings adorned her feet.
"I was transported. Every available surface was carved with columns, figures and patterns. Strangest of all, I could feel the antiquity of each stone. It was as if I'd acquired a different sense of time which allowed me to perceive age. The stones, from various epochs of restoration, resonated with different times, different centuries.
"Just then, a family entered the temple, and I stood aside as they greeted the goddess with signs of namaste. They offered their flowers, then departed. During this whole spectacle, I seemed to standing outside time and watching them. In this millenium-old structure, I witnessed the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims who had entered this sacred space, performed those ritual gestures, then departed. Through these rituals, the faithful had willingly re-entered cyclic time, and knowingly participated in its endless cycle.
"I promised myself that moment..."
Suddenly, I broke off my narrative. Fresh tears rose to my eyes. In a flash, I understood where my own narrative was leading me.
Myrette caressed my arm.
"Go on," she said.
"I promised myself," I said with difficulty, "that when I returned to Paris, I would go to Notre Dame one day, and enter it with the same, eternal reverence which I felt at that moment."
I looked at the cathedral. I still hadn't entered it, or made a heart-felt offering. But now, time had cycled round. I was living out the vow which, silently, I'd made before the goddess Parvati.
"Then," I continued, "another miracle occured. Standing before Parvati, I looked up, and noticed a sculpted figure,
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a dwarf, supporting the door's stone lintel. A live lizard was perched on his head. But, a few days before, I'd stood on this spot, and seen that exact same thing - the dwarf, with a live lizard on its head. I shivered uncontrollably. Was time cycling round?
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VISIONARY REVUE
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"Then, still standing before the cresent-shaped altar, I noticed two sculpted figures to my right, a courtier and courtesan, or god and goddess. In my heightened sense of perception, which seemed to span entire centuries, I could 'read' their Hieratic styles.
"I could see that, though each possessed the Hieratic style so particular to Hindu art, they were different. The lines on their faces marked them as the products of different guilds, different family-lines of sculptors, who'd passed on these styles from father to son, from master to apprentice, across the generations and through cyclic time.
"I saw the Visionary Lineage. As if, to confirm that momentous insight, I made another strange discovery. On the flagstone where I was standing, I noticed a peculiar mark. Bending down in the darkness, I sketched it out in my notebook. Then, over the course of the next half hour, I noticed more and more of these peculiar symbols, which I copied one by one."
I showed Myrette the pages from my notebook.
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"Each guild or family line had left its monogram on the floor of the temple. Why hadn't I noticed this before? I'd been in this same temple a few days ago. But now, I was seeing everything through new eyes. I was in the sacred space, experiencing the Sacred, and seeing all of its hidden signs.
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"With reverence, I entered the inner sanctum and offered up a stick of incense to Parvati."
For a moment, my eyes rose, and I gazed upon the statue of the Virgin.
"Then, as I left that inner sanctum, I saw a sculpture which had escaped my notice. The interior was so dark, I could easily have left without ever having seen it. And yet, it had been there, before my eyes, the whole time.
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"Below the threshold of the raised doorway, supporting the small altar, was an amazing stone sculpture. Alone in the darkness I stared at it fixedly. It was one of the oddest, most spectacularly visionary forms I'd ever seen."
I showed Myrette a photograph.
"But what was it? Obviously, it was alive but - plant or human? Phallic, organic, serpentine and sexual - it seemed to be all these things.
And what of its resemblance to a sacred mushroom? Was it trying to evoke the hidden relationship between sacred plants and visionary art?
I left the Devi Jagadambi temple, firmly convinced that the Visionary Lineage extended backward through time for thousands of years. Artists across the centuries had seen and experienced the Sacred, then left behind the hidden signs for others to follow. New generations would emerge, each of them gifted with new ways of seeing. And yet, something eternal would secretly persist.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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THE VISIONARIES OF ANCIENT INDIA
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By the time I finished my narrative, the sky was bathed in orange and blue. It was still the earliest hours of the dawn, and the sun had not yet risen. But the new day's epiphany was not far away.
"Listen to me," I said urgently. "I have to read these things to you - now. I have to share them with someone who I know will understand."
As I flipped through my notebook, various photos and reproductions came tumbling out. Myrette gathered them up as I found the appropriate pages.
"For years, I've been making notes, collecting images and copying out accounts of the Visionary Lineage. Ours is not the only epoch. The Hindus, Buddhists, Egyptians and Maya - they all had it, they all wrote about the eternal role of the Visionary artist."
"Here, listen..!" I urged her. "The German Indologist Heinrich Zimmer made a thorough study of the different traditions in Hindu carving and their 'rules of craft'."
Myrette took the reproduction of a Hindu statue and gazed at it as I read.
"He says that the craft 'is transmitted from master to pupil' (AIA* 321) because the artist's 'vocation is supposed to have been inherited from primordial times, from divine ancestral master craftsmen, and to be confined to certain families. (...) The craftsman has to be trained from childhood. Commencing as his father's apprentice, he follows unquestioningly, and as a matter of course, the ancestral calling.' (AIA 322)
"And so, 'the night before commencing a new work, the image maker is to pray: "O thou Lord of all gods, teach me in dreams how to carry out the whole of the work that I have in mind.' (AIA 320)
"He prays like this because he understands that 'an Indian image is, properly, an outward vessel corresponding precisely to the inner vision of the divinity.' (AIA 318) Indeed, 'the sacred image grows out of the inner vision,' (AF 53) because
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* AIA - Zimmer, Heinrich, The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythology and Transformations, Volume I, Bollingen, Princeton University Press, 1955.
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'in the fundamental aspects of its style, the sacred image is subject to the laws of the inner vision.' (AF* 53)
"According to an instructional text, the Hayasirsa-pancaratra: 'the divinity draws near willingly - if images are beautiful.' (AIA 318)
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"And so another text, the Sukranitisara, concludes: 'Let the imager establish images in temples by meditation on the deities who are the objects of his devotion. And for the successful achievement of this yoga, the lineaments of the images are described (...). By no other means (...) is it possible to be absorbed in contemplation, as by this meditation on the making of images.'" (AIA 321)
Myrette continued to gaze upon the Hindu statue as I flipped ahead in my notebook.
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*AF - Zimmer, Heinrich, Artistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India, Princeton University Press, 1984.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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"In another work, Zimmer goes on to describe the methods for meditating on images. Not only the artist - anyone - can meditate on images in such a manner as to see the Sacred. He does this through a ritual act of worship (puja) - approaching the stone image with a flower offering in his hands.
"'Upon entering, the worshiper casts aside any possible disruptive influences (...) by staring straight ahead, unblinking, so that his gaze is like that of the gods (...). Any distractions (...) he drives away by striking the ground three times with his heel.' (AF 43)
"'Then follows an act of concentrated meditation (ekgradadhyana) (...) guided by the inner visions. (...) This act of inner worship is to precede every external one.' As one text, the Saktanandatarangini, describes it: 'After seeing the Istadevata [chosen deity] in one's heart, one should establish Her in the image, picture or vessel.' (AF 44)
"And so, one must concentrate, first, on the inner image of the deity, and then project it or instill it into the sculpture. One concentrates on the inner image and sees it through 'inward vision', which is manifestly different from 'outward vision'.
"The difference is that one can 'see unity' with the aid of inward vision, while outward vision has great difficulties with this task. 'If our [physical] eye actually expects to deal with the multitude of things in its field of vision,' Zimmer writes, 'it has to roam about, to rove back and forth.' (AF 54)
"'How different is our inward vision!' (AF 53) Zimmer exclaims. 'With equal intensity and without showing favour, our inner eye must illuminate everything gathered before it.' (AF 60) 'This particular type of visualization fills up the entire field of view' so that 'the mind's focus is directed at the whole as the sum of its parts (...) with a clear focus on a single point.' (AF 61) Our focus expands until all the parts are seen 'with equal sharpness' (AF 59) and the figure stands 'totally motionless' (AF 61) and is 'sealed in tranquility'. (AF 63)
"Having achieved the inner vision, the contemplative then projects it onto the statue. He beholds its immanent deity through 'the divine eye'. As Vishnu says to Prince Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, 'Never will you be able to see me with this, your [physical] eye. I will give you a divine eye. Behold!' (AF 51)
"And so, meditating before the stone image with a flower offering in his hands, the contemplative performs the ritual 'act of installation'. According to the Gandharva Tantra, 'let him think of the identity between the image manifested within and the image without. Next, the energy of consciousness within should be taken (...) with the breath and infused into the
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FALL 2007
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handful of flowers. Thus, the Devata [the inner image of the deity] enters into the flowers. He should then establish the Devata in the [stone] image by touching it with those flowers.'" (AF 45)
"C'est incroyable..." Myrette sighed. "The flower offering becomes a ritual act for 'seeing the Sacred' in the statue... Do you have more of these..?"
"Let's fly across the continents to ancient Egypt," I said.
Myrette found the reproduction of an Egyptian statue.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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THE VISIONARIES OF ANCIENT EGYPT
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"The French Egyptologist Serge Sauneron wrote a classic study called The Priests of Ancient Egypt*. He began by gazing at a granite statue of a priest, and wondered about "the vexing riddle of their faces. What thoughts were once concealed behind these serene features, what spectacles were beheld by these large, open eyes that will never flash again with life?"
I showed Myrette a photo of an Egyptian temple.
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"First, Sauneron describes the Egyptian temples, which are laid out as a series of enclosures, one more sacred than the next. Through the main entrance, one can see a series of doorways - a door within a door within a door - leading to the naos, the innermost sanctuary at the back of the temple, with its sacred statue of the deity. One hieroglyphic text describes the High Priest as the one 'who enters into the holy of holies [and] sees the god in his naos.' (p. 9)
"The duties of the lower priests were to ritually bathe the statues, to invest them with a stole and burn the sacred incense. On certain festivals, the deities were placed in a barque and carried in a procession through the city.
"Other priests specialized in reading the stars, designing the temples, and aligning them with the heavens. The most gifted were charged with sacred writing and carving."
I stared at Myrette a moment and asked her:
"But did you ever wonder who wrote the Egyptian Books of the Dead? Who saw the underworld journey and depicted it in images? Who saw the gods and delineated their faces? Where did the Hieratic style of the Egyptians come from?
"We just don't know. They were Visionaries, and their secrets perished with them. But one text says that the role of the priests was 'to open the doors of heaven.' (p. 59) |
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| * Sauneron, Serge, The Priests of Ancient Egypt, Cornell University Press, 2000. |
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| And a carving on an Egyptian stele recounts that the priest 'was discreet concerning what he saw, learned and capable.' (p. 5) |
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"After their disparition, the Greek writer Porphyry remembered how 'the [Egyptian] priests ... devoted their whole life to contemplation and vision of things divine... They practised controlling their gaze, so that if they chose they did not blink.'" (p. 8)
"That sounds like the meditation practised in India," Myrette remarked.
"Yes, but we will never know. A heiroglyphic text |
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inscribed on the door jambs of the temple of Edfu warns the priests: 'Do not reveal what you see in any secret matter in the sanctuaries.'" (p. 23)
"So their secrets were never revealed?"
"The most explicit account we have comes from the Roman author Apuleius, who describes his initiation into the cult of Isis. The Egyptian High Priest warned him that 'the rites of initiation approximate to a voluntary death from which there is only a precarious hope of resurrection.' Still, through the grace of the goddess Isis, the initiate is 'in a sense, born again.' (p. 239)
"After ten days of fasting, Apuleius was purified in the public baths, sprinkled with holy water and invested with white linen before being brought to the inner recesses of the sanctuary. There, he received the final revelation, which he describes with the words: 'I approached the very gates of death and set one foot on Prosperpine's threshold, yet was permitted to return, rapt through all the elements. At midnight, I saw the sun shining as if it were noon; I entered the presence of the Gods of the underworld and the gods of the upper world, stood near and worshipped them.' (p. 241)
"That sounds like some trip..." Myrette said. "Strong entheogens will do that to you - put you through the death-and-rebirth experience, complete with the shining white light and divine revelation."
She stopped for a moment in thought. Then realized:
"Maybe this passage reveals how the Egyptian priests wrote their Books of the Dead - they saw the whole thing. They saw the gods, through inner vision..."
"...And then delineated their faces in the Hieratic style," I added.
"Where to next?"
"Mesomerica..."
Myrette found reproductions of Mayan statues, Aztec pyramids and Toltec architecture.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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THE MESO-AMERICAN VISIONARIES
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| "In his Aztec Thought and Culture* Miguel León-Portilla went through those few texts that survived the conquest and inquisition. He found recorded accounts of the trials where |
the Aztec elders defended their ancient ways.
"The tlamatinime, 'the wise men of the word' were responsible for teaching, painting, and composing their sacred songs. (p. 16, 20) They're the ones who built the pyramids, and aligned the solar temples with the heavens. They wrote the Mayan Books of the Underworld, and saw the gods in such a way as to delineate their features in the unique Mayan style.
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"The tlamatinime looked back to the Toltecs as to a golden age of art, and described their accomplishments:
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"'The remains
of what they
[the Toltecs] made
and left behind
are still there
and can be seen.
(...) Among them:
the serpent columns,
the round columns
of the serpents
with their heads
resting on the ground,
their tails and rattles
in the air
(...) the Toltec pyramids
(...) and precious
green stones, emeralds, turquoise.'
(p. 167)
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"That's why the word toltécatl, meaning a Toltec, came to signify 'an artist' (p. 168). They described the qualities that characterized a toltécatl:
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*Léon-Portilla, Miguel, Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Nahuatl Mind, University of Oklahoma Press, 1963
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'The artist:
disciple, abundant, multiple, restless.
The true artist,
capable, practising, skillful,
maintains dialogue with his heart,
meets things with his mind.
The true artist
draws out all from his heart;
works with delight
makes things with calm, with sagacity;
works like a true Toltec;
composes his objects;
works dextereously;
invents."
(p. 168)
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VISIONARY PANELS FROM QUIRIGUA
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VISIONARY REVUE
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"They also had a specific word for 'a painter'. He was a tlacuilo, a master of symbolism. (p. 172) They described him as follows:
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"The good painter is a Toltec, an artist;
he creates with red and black ink,
with black water...
The good painter is wise,
God is in his heart.
He puts divinity into things;
he converses with his own heart.
He knows the colours, he applies them and shades them;
He draws feet and faces,
He puts in the shadows; he achieves perfection.
He paints all the colours of the flowers,
as if he were a Toltec."
(p. 172)
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"C'est magnifique... époustouflant," Myrette thought aloud. "Yes, the artist 'puts divinity into things' and 'achieves perfection'. I can see it. It's just like what we talked about earlier."
"Ultimately, anyone who was gifted, who was a true Visionary, was called a yoltéotl, meaning 'one with a heart rooted in God.'" (p. 172)
"C'est ça! That's the true sign, the hidden sign of a Hieratic artist."
"Alright, here's the last one. Let's fly across the Himilayas to Tibet.
Myrette fixed her gaze on a Buddhist thangka.
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VISIONARY REVUE
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THAI THANKGA
Chalermchai Kositpipat
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BUDDHIST VISIONARIES
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"Robert Beer is an artist who has studied the Tibetan traditions of thangka painting. After much practice and insight, he wrote:
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"As breathtakingly majestic as the external world appeared, it was still a pale reflection of the internally visualized worlds of the deities' paradise realms. Descriptions of dimensions which were permeated with rainbow light, iridescent colour, divine perfume, and heavely music, only served to heighten the perceptions of an artist's visionary reality.
"Here, in a landscape which was lit up from within, perspective, scale and shadow lost their logical solidity. A distant mountain peak possessed the same clarity and importance as a foreground flower. Nothing was hinted at or alluded to: everything in the composition existed in a state of independent 'Is-ness' and the same meticulous detail and clarity was applied to each component.
"Yet the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.
"Visualized descriptions amplify nature's creations by enhancing the intensity of colours. Objects appear as self-illuminated and composed of the five precious substances of gold, silver, coral, pearl and gemstones. Gemstone comparisons include emerald, beryl, crystal, diamond, sapphire, lapis lazuli, amber, turquoise and ruby.
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THAI THANKGA
Chalermchai Kositpipat
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"The most finely painted thankgas display much of these other-worldly qualities, the whole composition possessing a highly integrated structure and sublime grace. Such works are described as 'divinely inspired'; they radiate an innate tranquility where the deities' qualities shine through
"Whether dynamic or static, visions of the divine are infinite, reflecting that pure, still moment of 'seeing'." (p. 4)
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"C'est étonnant..." Myrette sighed. "It's all right there, in this image - the heightened perception, seeing all of existence with equal reverence... the shining tranquility and - what did he call it? - 'the pure, still moment of seeing?' Yes, everything becomes timeless and immediately present."
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VISIONARY REVUE
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DAWN
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By now, the sparrows were singing in the trees, announcing the rising sun.
We stood up, and Myrette took me by the hand. Silently, we approached the cathedral, which still glowed with incredible beauty. After all we'd seen and read, the statues took on a deeper and richer significance. Even here, in the remains of this Gothic ruin, the Sacred spoke to us.
Though destroyed by the revolution and rebuilt, its holiness had prevailed. From ancient times - before this cathedral, before the Celtic temple it had razed and replaced - this was sacred ground. Now, we could feel it under our feet. We were standing, as Myrette had said, 'before the gates of Paradise'.
She led me past the cathedral's southern facade to the gardens at the back. Deftly, we trespassed the perimeter, climbing over its black iron gate. Shaded by the trees in this enclosed garden, we were totally alone. I felt, at that moment, as if we'd entered a forbidden place, like the ancient Garden of Eden. But now, there was neither temptation nor falleness. For this place, I knew with certainty, was paradise.
At its centre stood a fountain, its slender Gothic spire like a shrine, and the Virgin ensconced within its stone matrix. The Goddess of this temple gazed down at us, her face aglow with compassion, her smile resplendent with joy.
The first rays of the sun entered our sacred enclosure. The world was set afire. A golden conflagration infused us with renewed life and enflamed us with fiery luminessence. All was childlike and miraculous, serene and eternal, like the first day of creation.
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As I cast my eyes over the garden, I could not detect the slightest imperfection. Everything here was flawless. Nothing had changed - the trees were still trees, and the fountain a glorious fountain. But now, heaven had descended to the earth, and filled it with new beauty. The world was transfigured, and I was seeing everything as it truly was - perfect.
Freed of want, longing and desire, I gazed at Myrette. At first, I was afraid her face might transform, and display an endless series of beguiling aspects. But a single image sustained itself indefinitely. It was, as if, the first time that I'd beheld her visage.
But who was this? Was this Myrette? Her gaze was neither dark, nor overly serious. There was no tremour of fear; no defiance. Even longing and desire had disappeared.
The being before me seemed angelic, neither male nor female, but resembled, if anything, an ageless child. Her beauty was unearthly - absolute and still, yet utterly moving...
Myrette smiled, kissed my lips, and whispered in my ear, "We're home."
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VISIONARY REVUE
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L. CARUANA
In his studio
Paris Bastille
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Laurence Caruana was born 1962 in Toronto Canada, of Maltese descent. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Philosophy, and then studied painting at die Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna. In the year 2000 he apprenticed directly under Ernst Fuchs, working as his assistant in his studios in Monaco and Castillon.
The artist has made his home variously in Toronto, Malta, Vienna, Munich, Monaco and Paris. During his wanderings he has actively recorded his dreams and expanded their imagery through mythology. His paintings are inspired by memories and dreams, experiments with entheogens, and the interplay of different cultural symbols and styles.
His interest in sacred art and iconography has led to extensive travels, studying the spiritual traditions of Gothic and Renaissance Christianity (Western Europe), Byzantine Christianity (Eastern Europe), ancient Egypt (Egypt), Hinduism (India), Buddhism (Nepal, Tibet), Maya and Aztec culture (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras).
After meeting his French fiançée in Munich, L. Caruana settled in Paris. From his studio in the Bastille quarter, he continues painting while lecturing on Visionary art and editing The Visionary Revue: the On-line Journal of Visionary Art. He has also authored several books:
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